


Knockin' On Some Doors

by editingatwork



Series: Neighbors AU [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Beer League AU, M/M, apartment neighbors au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 04:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13450311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/editingatwork/pseuds/editingatwork
Summary: Amid several months of beer, pizza, cat photos, chirping, and Jeff joining a bi-monthly hockey beer league, a friendship (and a crush) unfolds.





	Knockin' On Some Doors

When Kent comes over for beer, he spends like an hour extolling his cat’s virtues and showing Jeff pictures of her on his phone. Kent’s cat is named Kit Purrson, because of course she is. She’s a black-and-white Maine Coon, four years old, and the fluffiest thing on four legs Jeff has ever seen.

Jeff is very unmoved by even the most adorable kitten pictures and tales of feline hijinks. He owes this to his pet-less childhood and limited interaction with animals in years since. But he keeps that shit to himself, because Kent’s face when he shows Jeff the fiftieth photo of Kit sacked out across the sofa in a position that shouldn’t be anatomically possible is one of pure, unreserved love. Jeff is positive he has never cared about a significant other as much as Kent loves his cat.

Which is, he admits to himself, very sad.

Two beers in, Kent shakes himself and closes out of his photo app. “Sorry. I’ve just been going on, you’re probably sick of hearing about her.”

Jeff absolutely is. “Nah, man, it’s cool. You’re worried about her, right? And you miss her.”

Kent sighs, fiddling with his phone. “Yeah. I hate being home without her. It’s so damn cold and quiet. Thanks for having me over,” he adds, and picks up his beer to knock back the rest of it.

Jeff holds up a fresh one, and when Kent nods, he cracks it open and hands it over. “Any time,” he lies, sincerely hoping Kent does not take him up on that literally. Jeff is enjoying Kent’s company thus far, but Kent is lonely and sad and  _really_  attached to his cat, and Jeff can’t be an emotional stand-in for that.

Kent smiles. “Back at you. At the very least, I owe you a couple of beers. Heck, I’ll even order pizza ‘cause I’m such a stand-up guy.”

"You owe me pizza  _and_  breadsticks for all the nights you kept me up,” Jeff replies, grinning and without any bite. 

“Deal.”

Kent doesn’t stay long after that. Ten p.m. is early for Vegas but late for Jeff, who works a real nine-to-five. He sees Kent to the door, but before Kent leaves, Jeff asks, “Let me know when Kit comes home?”

Kent’s face softens in a mix of sadness and gratitude. “Sure. Thanks for having me over,” he says again.

“Any time.”

After that, Jeff doesn’t see or hear from Kent for five days. He contemplates going upstairs to knock on Kent’s door but never gets around to it. They never exchanged numbers, so he can’t text, either. He lets himself get caught back up in the grinding routine of life, and while he doesn’t at all  _forget_  about Kent, he doesn’t go out of his way to make their lives intersect again, either.

It’s a Friday night when he gets a surprise knock on his door.

“Hey,” Kent says when Jeff goes out to greet him. “Uh, you said to tell you when Kit came home. I picked her up a few days ago, but I’ve been busy with work and her med schedule, so I didn’t—well, anyway. You asked, so I’m just letting you know.” He stumbles over some words and shuffles one foot on the floor. Clearly he realizes that Jeff might have just said that out of courtesy, and didn’t actually want a full play-by-play update on Kit’s health.

Jeff doesn’t want the play-by-play, but he really is happy to hear the news. “That’s great,” he replies, and smiles earnestly so Kent knows he means it. “How’s she doing?”

“Lethargic. She’s interested in food, so that’s good, but sometimes it’s like she’s too tired to eat, so. I’m having to bribe her with all kinds of cat treats just to get her to eat something. She’s lost a lot of weight. But she’s getting better,” he adds, looking exhausted but more hopeful than he did the last time they talked.

“That’s great,” Jeff says. “I know she’s tired now, but you’ll get her where she needs to be. She’ll get there. Four years is young for a cat, right? You’ve got a lot of years left together.”

Kent looks like he wants to hug Jeff, which Jeff wouldn’t know how to deal with, so he’s glad when Kent says instead, “You wanna come up and meet her?”

Jeff shifts. “I’d love to, but, uh, are you sure that’s a good idea? She’s had a rough month, is she up for a house guest?”

Kent’s smile grows to brilliant proportions. “She’s a ham. She loves new people.”

The last person who said that to Jeff ended up carrying their cat away and apologizing profusely while Jeff sucked on a bleeding finger. Animals don’t hate him, but they seem to know that he doesn’t  _get_  them, and that alone puts them off. But Kent is still beautiful and he looks so damn thrilled by the prospect of introducing Jeff to his sick cat, and that deadly mix of hot and sweet in a man has always made Jeff weak.

“Sure,” Jeff says, and grabs his keys before following Kent into the hall.

As promised, Kit is sloth-like in her lethargy. Kent picks her up like she’s glass and brings her over. Jeff holds out a hand for her to sniff, simultaneously holding his breath. Kit considers his fingers, twitches her little nose, and then tiredly gives his index finger a rough lick.

Jeff would swear his heart stops.

“See,” Kent says. “She loves you.” There’s a nest of blankets and pillows on the sofa. He sets her down on it gently, helping her arrange her limbs until she’s comfortable and rests her chin on her front paws, eyes already drooping closed.

“Did they say what’s wrong with her?” Jeff asks.

“Heart infection. It started in her upper respiratory system, but ended up in her heart. It’s why she was so touch-and-go, because once it got to her heart, there wasn’t much they could do besides give her medication, put her on oxygen, and hope she fought it off.”

“Jesus.”

Kent chuckles dryly. “Yeah. It’s why I was such a mess. I got really drunk, and after they called me about the seizures, I threw the glass in the sink.”

“I heard,” Jeff says.

Kent winces. “Sorry.”

“No, I mean—” Jeff licks his lips, working through what he feels and how to say it. “Every other time I heard something up here, I came up. But I didn’t that time.” He doesn’t mention that he heard Kent crying, too. “Feels like a dick move, is all.”

Kent shrugs. “It wasn’t your business,” he says, and it sounds like forgiveness and understanding, not an accusation. “And anyway, I owe you pizza and breadsticks for all the other times I kept you up, right?” When Jeff nods, Kent asks, “How’s tomorrow night? You busy?”

Jeff is not busy, which is why he arrives on Kent’s doorstep Saturday night, a six-pack of beer in one hand and a handful of DVDs in the other.

Kent answers that by turning on his TV and pulling up Netflix. “Rude,” he says. “You just assume I’m a bad host, bring your own entertainment and shit. Also?” He goes into the kitchen and comes back with his own six-pack of Millers. “How dare you bring Bud Lite into my house?”

There are two boxes of pizza and a large order of breadsticks on the coffee table. Jeff puts the beer beside them and checks the contents. “Dude, you ordered  _Hawaiian pizza_. You’ve got zero rocks to throw in that glass house.”

Kent laughs and puts his beer next to Jeff’s. Then he flops down on the sofa, which is covered in cat fur but absent of Kit. When Jeff asks about her, Kent says, “She’s in the bedroom. I already fed her and gave her tonight’s meds. They make her kinda drowsy. She’ll probably sleep through anything, but we should keep it down, just in case.” He sounds like a dad talking about his kids. It’s adorable and hilarious.

“Can’t keep her up past her bedtime,” Jeff agrees, and Kent flips him off when he looks over and sees Jeff’s shit-eating grin.

It turns out that they have very similar tastes in movies, at least the kind to watch while eating pizza and drinking beer on a Saturday night. There are a few films that one of them likes that the other will vehemently object to, but Demolition Man is not among those.

Despite the movie playing, they spend more time talking than watching. Kent is still an obnoxious shit with a hewn-to-perfection physique that should be illegal in this state and all others, but he’s easy to talk to. He’s surprisingly humble, too, and takes Jeff’s ribbing about the noisy nights good-naturedly, punctuated occasionally by a light, retaliatory shove.

“For real, though,” Jeff is saying, four beers in and getting light-headed and loose-tongued. “If that’s when you’re doing chores, your schedule’s whacked, man. You never even told me what the hell you do, why you’re exercising at midnight.” And so  _goddamn ripped._ Jeff keeps trying to get over that and can’t. He hasn’t seen abs like that since his college days playing hockey.

Kent settles back on the sofa cushions and takes a long drink from his beer. “What do  _you_  think I do?” he drawls, smiling like the answer’s a dirty secret.

That smile goes right to Jeff’s gut, and lower. “Man, don’t make me ask if you’re a stripper.” When Kent doesn’t respond, just keeps smiling, Jeff says, “Holy shit, for real?”

Kent laughs. “No. God, the look on your face.”

Jeff aims a light kick at Kent’s shins. “Fuck you. You gonna tell me, or what?”

“I work at a gym. I’m a personal trainer. People in Vegas have weird hours, and I’ve gotta work around ‘em.”

That’s so  _dull_. It makes Jeff laugh. “That’s disappointingly normal.”

“Well, half my clients are strippers, so, not that normal.”

“Only in Vegas,” Jeff says.

“Tell me about it. I’ve been here so long, the weird shit doesn’t even feel weird anymore. Like gas station slot machines.”

“Slot machines basically  _everywhere_ ,” Jeff agrees.

“Fucking truth.”

“People carrying martinis, hanging out on the sidewalks like it’s a bar.”

“Twenty-four-hour everything.”

“Actual free parking.”

Kent finishes his beer, puts the bottle on the table, and grabs a breadstick. “Every time I visit my parents in Buffalo, it’s like leaving Munchkinland and landing back in Kansas.”

“You’re from Buffalo?”

“Yeah. Went to college in Boston, though. Better hockey.”

Jeff feels like a Christmas tree has lit up his insides. “Boston College or Boston U?”

“Boston U. Where’d you go?”

“Yale.”

Kent nearly chokes on his breadstick. “Shit, you’re  _smart_.”

In hindsight, it  _did_ sound like he was bragging. “Not that smart. I got a full ride playing hockey.”

Now, Kent’s face splits on a grin. “Get out. Do you still play?”

Until this second, Jeff could have said ‘no’ without much regret. But when he says, “No, not for a while,” it feels wrong; embarrassing. Like he should have made some kind of effort to stick with it, instead of just taking his diploma and finding a steady nine-to-five.

But Kent just leans in and asks, “You wanna?”

\--

That night of pizza and beer is how Jeff finds out that Kent runs a bi-monthly beer league. 

The first time Jeff attends, he feels awkward. Not because he doesn’t know anyone, not because the guys are all chirping each other with inside jokes and talking about shit he doesn’t understand—that kind of camaraderie comes with time—but because he’s wearing rental skates, he’s using a stick that’s a couple centimeters too short, and he hasn’t played in at least five years.

He sucks.

“You don’t suck,” Kent says after Jeff fails to stop him from scoring,  _again_. “You’re rusty. And anyway, everyone looks bad next to me.”

One of Kent’s teammates whacks him on his shin guards as he skates by. “Shut up, Parse.”

Jeff’s team wins, barely, and with little help from Jeff. The other guys on his team offer congratulatory fistbumps, anyway. They even invite him out for drinks. Kent looks pleased when he hears, and then winces and shakes his head. “You guys go on, I have to get home. My girl is waiting.”

Jeff looks up from unlacing his skates and asks, “How’s she doing?” It’s been two weeks since Kit came home. Between work and hovering obsessively over Kit, Kent has been mostly MIA. Tonight is the first time Jeff has seen him in days.

Kent grins. “She’s doing so much better. Still tired, but she’s eating and playing with stuff again, getting back to her old self.”

One of the other guys says, “Hey, that’s great, Parse.”

Someone else chimes in, “You’re sure you can’t take the night off?”

Kent shakes his head and stuffs his skates in his bag, then reaches for his street shoes. “Maybe next time. You guys have fun.”

Outside the rink, they part ways. Jeff watches Kent go, feeling a little weird about hanging out with Kent’s friends while Kent goes home. Nobody else seems to think anything of it, though, and when they get to the bar, Jeff finds that Kent’s group is down-to-earth and easy to talk to. Regardless of their day (or night) jobs, they’re all hockey guys at heart. They trade stories about teams they’ve been on, games they’ve played, and spend a good half hour one-upping each other with stories of their worst injuries. A lot of these guys, it turns out, played hockey in high school or college, and not all of them on D3 teams, either. They’re actually pretty good.

“Not like Parse, though,” one of the guys interjects, and turns to Jeff. “He’s on another level, like NHL material. You know he played in Juniors?”

Jeff had noticed that Kent was something of a wet dream on skates, making passes and shots like it was easier than breathing. Jeff isn’t surprised, but he’s damn impressed. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” someone else says. “He could have gone to the draft. But he skipped out, went to college.”

The first guy—Mike, if Jeff remembers correctly, but he probably doesn’t because he’s shit at names—nods. “Technically, he’s a free agent. He could get signed, if a club noticed him.”

Jeff thinks about the Kent that he knows: just an everyday guy who lives in a normal apartment with a normal cat and works a normal job in one of the world’s most exciting cities. He thinks about Kent—a guy who eats Hawaiian pizza without remorse and subjects near-strangers to unending cat pics—being catapulted into a world of lights and scrutiny, where his whole life was the pressure of hockey.

He can’t picture it.

“Do clubs come down this far to look for players?”

Mike shrugs. “They do if you’ve got an agent shopping you around.”

Which begs the question, “Does Kent?”

Mike shrugs again. “He did once, I think. Dunno about now.”

It’s a good evening out. Jeff and Mike even exchange numbers at the end of it.

“Make Parse add you to the mailing list,” Mike says, and gives him Kent’s email as well. “He usually sends out an email blast every third month, letting everyone know the dates and times for games.”

 “Cool.” Jeff says, and sends Kent a message as soon as he’s home. 

By morning, his inbox is flooded with assorted welcomes, and some kind of ongoing argument about the yard maintenance of Astroturf vs real grass.

It turns out that Kent’s beer league is as ridiculous as he is.

\--

Somehow, Jeff makes it to Thanksgiving before he realizes that Kent has become one of his closest friends. And even then, it really only clicks when Kent asks him if he can watch Kit over the long weekend.

“Sorry,” Jeff says when Kent shows up at his door. They’ve exchanged phone numbers by now, but for some reason they both prefer to bother each other at home. “I’ll be at my parents’ place for all of it.”

“Cool, cool,” Kent says with a shrug. “Didn’t expect you to stick around, just thought I’d ask.”

“If you’re desperate for a sitter, I can talk to some people at work, find out if anyone can cat-sit.”

Kent gives him a weird look. “Why would I be desperate? You’re the first person I’ve asked.”

Jeff has no response to that except, “Oh.”

Kent laughs at him. “Why do you look surprised?”

_I didn’t think we were that close._  “You know I’m bad with animals.”

“Kit likes you.”

Jeff still doesn’t know about that.

A day later, he finds out that Kent got a sitter. So when the holiday comes, Kent takes a plane home to Buffalo, and Jeff drives up to Jackson, Wyoming. It’s good to be back among family, even if the weather is terrible.

“Shut up about the cold,” his little (twenty-year-old) sister Alice groans in the middle of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. “You live in Vegas, we get it.  Doesn’t it get cold there?”

“Vegas gets  _normal_  cold. Wyoming gets  _insane_  cold. Going into the negatives is just unnecessary.”

“Ugh, just stop,” Alice says. “You talk about the cold almost as much as you talk about your neighbor.”

Jeff doesn’t bother refuting that, for two reasons: one, it’ll just encourage her, and two, she’s right.

He keeps his mentions of Kent to a minimum after that. But he doesn’t stop responding to Kent’s texts, which have been coming like a continuous storm flurry since Kent arrived in Buffalo.

The first had said,  _freezing my motherfucking balls off,_  to which Jeff had replied, _weakling,_ as if he hadn’t been sitting in front of a fireplace with a blanket wrapped around him like a burrito. On Thanksgiving, Kent sends him a pic of the Parson family’s turkey—an enormous masterpiece of golden-brown meat and stuffing—with the caption,  _our turkey can kick ur turkey’s ass_.

Jeff sends him a pic of the Troy family ham. It was baked in brown sugar and has pineapple rings pinned to it. Kent sends back,  _wtf is wrong with you???_

After the Troys’ Thanksgiving dinner, there’s pie and eggnog and a marathon of the original Star Wars trilogy. Jeff gets a little tipsy and sends increasingly random movie observations to Kent, who just responds with stickers of laughing cats and dinosaurs rolling their eyes.

Multiple times, Jeff catches Alice looking at him knowingly. He ignores her. He’s making Kent laugh, and he doesn’t want to think too hard about how and why he enjoys that so much.

The day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday. Kent goes out shopping. Jeff does not.

Kent wakes him up at 2am with a goddamn phone call.

“Th’ fuck,” Jeff growls when he manages to stab ‘Accept Call.’ “You asshole, do you have any idea what time it is out here?”

“Red, blue, or black?” Kent replies. It’s muffled, like he’s cupping his hand over the receiver. Jeff can hear department store holiday music and shouting in the background.

“ _Why?_ ”

“Answer the question and you can go back to sleep. Red, blue, or black?”

Jeff groans. “Um. Black.”

“Thanks—Mom, black!  _Black_!” The call abruptly cuts off.

Jeff tosses the phone on his pillow and resolutely goes back to sleep. When he wakes up seven hours later, he tries texting Kent about the call. Kent responds, but he doesn’t tell Jeff what it was about.

Suspicion tingles up Jeff’s spine.  _Did you buy me something?_  he sends.

_no._

Well, that’s a definite yes.

_did you get me something for christmas?_  Jeff asks, mildly panicked for some inexplicable reason and unable to capitalize words anymore.

_fine, yes._

Then,  _it’s nohting. small. don’t worry about it_.

Jeff is going to lie awake worrying about it until he figures out what to get Kent in return.  _Well, thanks in advance._

_i told you, it’s nothing. sry to wake u_

_Yeah, I hate you, you asshole,_  Jeff replies, grinning, and he sends a smilie emoji to make sure the message comes across.  _Even across the country you can’t leave me alone._

Kent doesn’t respond to that for twenty minutes. Jeff figures he got distracted, and decides to drag himself out of bed and find some coffee.

\--

The holiday ends, Jeff goes back to Vegas, and life goes on. What he told Alice about Vegas winters is true, they don’t get nearly as cold as Wyoming, but that doesn’t make waking up to cold floors and colder outdoor air any better. Jeff leaves his heat off overnight to save on electricity, but it means his morning commute from the bed to the shower is sheer torture.

“I don’t know how the fuck you do it,” he tells Kent one morning, after bumping into him coming back from a  _goddamn outdoor jog._

Kent looks down at himself. He’s wearing a long-sleeved turtleneck under a thin-looking jacket, a beanie, fingerless gloves, and shorts over tight black exercise leggings. The shorts cling to his ass, and his calves bulge under the polyester. “It’s insulated,” he says, like that excuses his lack of decent covering.

“They’re going to find you frozen to death in a park,” Jeff counters.

Kent laughs. “You’re so sensitive to cold weather. How did you ever manage to get into hockey?”

“Peer pressure,” Jeff says, which is half the truth. The rest of it involves a sob story about a crush on a straight boy, whom Jeff figured out too late was just a garden-variety prick.

Kent isn’t a prick. He looks like he should be—chiseled jaw, coifed blond hair, cocky smile, jacked like a jock with a job at a gym. He’s even got the kind of swagger and self-awareness about his athletic prowess that Jeff would normally associate with a guy who evaluated his own worth based on others’ lack of it. But Kent is a team player. Jeff can see it at the hockey meetups, how naturally Kent falls into a leadership position. On the days when Jeff and Kent are on the same team, Jeff finds himself getting more charged up just from wanting to give Kent a win.

When Jeff starts staying a few minutes late to practice shots on an empty net, just because he wants to get better to impress  _Kent_ , he realizes he might have a problem.

And he  _still_  doesn’t know what to get Kent for Christmas.

One day, during their warm-up, some guy in a suit shows up to sit in the stands and watch. The whole group notices but pretends not to. When the game starts, there’s a harder competitive edge to it than usual. Guys get rougher with checks and more aggressive with shots and passes than usual. It’s not  _violent_ , not anywhere near what Jeff has seen on TV from the NHL or even the AHL, but there’s intent to win that is usually just symbolic. Jeff has to actually work to keep Kent off the puck, and even that doesn’t stop him. Kent gets a hat trick and two assists. It’s normal for him to be impressive. But Jeff is willing to admit that Kent’s stick work that evening makes him a little hard.

After the game, they bump fists and clean up the gear on the ice. As Jeff helps Mike carry away their goal, he sees the man in the suit coming to meet Kent at the rink’s edge.

“You think it’s a scout?” Jeff mutters.

Mike snorts. “It’s not the Girl Scouts selling cookies.”

There’s no sane reason for Jeff’s heart to feel like it’s in a vise. Kent getting scouted is a good thing. He’s fucking amazing. Whether he wants to be in the NHL or not, at the caliber that he plays, he deserves to have a shot.

Kent talks with the man in the suit for a long time. When he finally comes into the locker room, most of the guys are already in their street clothes and nearly finished packing their gear. It’s customary for at least half of them to grab a beer somewhere after a game. But with Kent’s very obvious important conversation going on, nobody has left yet.

Kent finds them all waiting for him and rolls his eyes. “It’s just a scout. Chill.”

Someone says, “If you sign with the Rangers, you’re dead to us.”

Kent groans and waddles over to a bench. He’s still in his skates and all his padding. He pulls the jersey off to reveal bare skin and goosebumps, because Kent is a lunatic who doesn’t wear anything under his pads. “I’m not signing with anybody. He’s just here ‘cause my name’s on a list of free agents.”

“Gotta be high on the list if they’re sending someone all the way out here,” someone else says.

Another guy counters, “We’re not ‘all the way out here,’ we live in the Aces’ backyard. If they’re looking for guys to draft, of course they’re gonna check out their own city.”

The bickering goes on. When everyone—including Kent and Jeff—eventually starts migrating to the door with the intention of grabbing a few beers, the conversation follows them out. When they get to the bar, however, it dies down, and they move on to something else.

The next game isn’t scheduled for another two weeks. But Jeff can’t get the incident out of his head; he can’t stop thinking about Kent getting pulled aside to talk about…whatever it was they talked about. Kent hadn’t offered details at the bar and Jeff hasn’t asked for any since, even though they often cross paths in the hallways of their building as they go to and from work. They text, too, about inconsequential things, and Jeff doesn’t broach the subject there, either.

The last game before Christmas comes and goes. No people in suits show up to watch them. All the guys complain about the NHL scouts missing out on their sick moves. Those who go to the bar afterwards spend the night trying to one-up each other with the shots and breakaways they pulled during the game. Kent laughs and brags along with them. Jeff does, too, although he’s still rusty enough that he doesn’t have anything truly impressive to share. Not like Kent, whose passes rocket across the ice like guided missiles, whose shots are deadly precise, and who has an unnatural ability to evade defense and nab a takeaway through sheer force of will.

Jeff has given up telling himself he doesn’t find it hot.

He’s panicking about what to get Kent for Christmas.

They have pizza and beer at Kent’s place on the last weekend before December 25th. Vegas has already begun to fill up with tourists and empty out of locals. Kent has been busy as fuck helping all his clients get in shape for the holidays, so Jeff isn’t sure how they both managed to find time to hang out. Jeff had honestly been trying to give Kent his space since he seemed so busy. When Kent had invited him over, Jeff had hemmed and hawed and fumbled through an explanation of exactly that, which had earned him a truly baffled look from Kent.

“Bro, I’ve always got time for you,” Kent had said, which made Jeff’s stomach feel like he’d tripped going up the stairs.

So they’re on Kent’s couch, drinking Kent’s beer and eating pizza that Jeff brought, watching a new Netflix movie with no plot but lots of explosions.

Kit has made herself comfortable on Jeff’s lap. Jeff is steadfastly ignoring this because he doesn’t know how to fucking deal with direct affection from a cat. He’s even less capable of handling the way Kent’s face goes mushy every time he looks at them.

They talk about nothing; the movie, the beer, plans for Christmas, the latest gossip in the beer league’s group chat. They argue half-heartedly about the current standings in the NHL and vehemently about reality TV drama.

Jeff is seven beers in and getting stupid. The things he should keep to himself start coming out his mouth. The worst of them being: “You’d make a fucking amazing NHL captain.”

Kent is in the middle of stuffing pizza crust in his mouth. He mumbles around it, “Where th’ hell ith thith com’ from?”

Jeff is already getting red-faced from embarrassment at the slip. “Just thinking. You were in Juniors, right? You could have gone pro. You’re still good enough to go pro. If you did, they’d be idiots not to give you a C or an A.”

Kent’s smile takes on a confused sheen. He chews and swallows. “This is random, even for you.”

“It’s not random. You love hockey. You’re  _good_  at hockey.” Jeff gestures to the TV, which is currently showing a car chase but has, on many occasions, played ESPN on a weekday night. “You should be tearing it up on prime time, not kicking around with guys on a beer league.”

“I _like_ playing with you guys,” Kent says. His brow is furrowed and he’s frowning. “I like playing hockey, what’s the difference when or where?”

It feels like the conversation is becoming an argument, although damn if Jeff knows why. “If the beer league’s fine, why do you have an agent? Why are you talking to scouts?”

Kent shakes his head and looks to the TV. “I don’t know, I’m—I’m keeping my options open, or whatever.”

“So if you got an offer, you’d sign?”

Kent’s groan is one of frustration. “Why the fuck does it matter? Nobody’s offered me anything.”

“If you get an offer, you should sign,” Jeff continues. He ought not to, when Kent’s expression is pinched so tight. But the word vomit won’t stop. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, and you deserve it.”

Kent’s jaw is clenched. “I don’t wanna talk about this. Can we stop fucking talking about this and just watch the damn movie?”

Jeff is drunk, but he can see that he’s pushed too far. “Yeah, man. Sorry.”

Kent sighs, reaches for his beer, and takes a long drink. “It’s fine.”

They’re both silent for ten minutes, just eating and drinking and watching the movie. It feels tense.

Jeff is getting ready to try making some kind of light conversation for the sake of levity when Kent says, “I have a friend—well, ex-friend—in the show.”

It takes Jeff an embarrassingly long pause before he remembers “the show” is what guys called the NHL. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” Kent swings his beer between his fingers. “We were in Juniors together. We were supposed to go to the draft together, too, but I decided on college instead. He went, though. Nearly overdosed on his own anxiety meds the night before the draft, but. He went. He’s in.”

Jeff knows his eyes are wide. “Oh.”

“It’s all that pressure, man,” Kent says, and it sounds like something he’s said before and is sick of repeating. “There’s, like, city-wide economies counting on you, GMs who’ll trade you over a salary cap and a bad string of games, fans who’ll worship you when you win and spit on you when you lose. It gets in your head and it fucks with you.” He draws a slow breath and lets it out. “Yeah, I’ve got an agent, and yeah, she’s shopping me around. It feels like I should be trying, you know? But that guy last week was the first scout I’ve seen in ages. Probably ‘cause anybody who talks to me can tell I don’t really want what they’re selling.”

Jeff waits, but Kent appears done. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry.”

Snorting, Kent shakes his head and turns. “I’m not mad at you,” he says, smiling wryly. “And I mean, it’s not all bad as I make it sound. There’s fame and fortune and never-ending hockey.”

“You’re right, though. You should do whatever’s best for you, for your life. If the beer league is what you want, then that’s great. ‘Sides, if you’d gone pro, we’d probably have never met.”

Kent nods, his smile widening. “That’s true. I’m kinda way outta your league, there’s no way you’d be on a team with me.”

“God, you’re such an asshole.” Since Kent doesn’t have any throw pillows on his sofa for Jeff to hit him with, he settles for kicking him.

“Ow! Shit, now who’s the asshole?”

“Still you,” Jeff says, trying to kick him again.

“You’re a terrible friend,” Kent complains, and it’s like there’s a sun shining in Jeff’s chest, for how warm that makes him feel.

It _nearly_ makes up for the pain of Kent’s follow-up shoulder punch.

\--

Two days before Jeff leaves for Wyoming, he finds himself in the middle of a crisis: he still has no idea what to get Kent for Christmas. Kent hasn’t said a thing about the Black Friday incident, which means Jeff could just be projecting or have misunderstood the whole conversation after it. But he really doubts it. So he breaks his own rule of stoic self-reliance and texts half the guys from the beer league for ideas. (The other half can’t be trusted with secrets.)

The suggestions he gets vary in usefulness.

**Bommer:** _  
idk man, a gift card?_

**Rabs:**  
_get him socks, every in this damn league needs new socks._  
 _wait, is this just parse, or everyone?_  
 _if its everyone, I want socks_.

**Posy:**  
_Amazon gift card, dude, can’t go wrong there._

**Mas:**  
_a lifetime supply of hugs_

**Casher:** _  
gft card._

**Gurney:** _  
Candlelight dinner for two and flowers._

Jeff is at work when he gets the last text, and he squints suspiciously at his screen. It’s from Mike.

**Me:** _  
Bro, what?_

**Gurney:**  
_Nah, I’m kidding. Get him something for his cat._  
 _Same dif anyway._

Jeff squints harder at the screen.

**Me:  
** _Bro WHAT?_

**Gurney:  
** _;)_

Jeff puts his phone aside and gets back to work. Mike is a nosey asshole who notices too much. It’s in Jeff’s best interest to pretend he has no idea what’s being implied.

But later, as he’s driving home, he makes a detour.

\--

There’s no time to schedule a hang-out with Kent before they both leave the state, so Jeff does the tacky thing and just shows up at Kent’s door with a gift bag in hand.

Kent’s jaw drops when he sees it. “What’s this?”

“I’m driving home tomorrow morning, and I don’t know if I’ll see you again before I leave, so. Here.” Jeff holds out the bag. “Merry Christmas.”

Kent blinks. “Um. Yeah, come in?”

Inside, the apartment is a weird mix between sparkling clean and a disaster zone. Everything looks freshly swept and sanitized, but Kent’s belongings are all over the place. Kit is sitting on a pile of unfolded laundry on the sofa.

Jeff looks around and starts, “Dude,” but Kent waves a hand and cuts him off with, “This is what it looks like when I’m packing. Not everyone can just throw all their shit in a car. Some of us have to figure out our weight limits for checked baggage. Deal with it.”

Jeff laughs. “Yeah, okay. You don’t have to play host, I’m really just here to give you your present.”

Kent sits down on the arm of his sofa and shakes his head. It might be Jeff’s imagination, but his cheeks look kind of pink. “Can I open it?”

“It’s your gift,” Jeff replies, trying for teasing but probably coming off nervously high-pitched. He’d felt like a genius when he was in the store, but now that Kent is pulling tissue paper out of the bag, Jeff mostly just feels thankful he included a gift receipt.

Kent has to wedge the oddly-shaped package out of the bag. When he sees what it is, his face goes blank.

“It’s a webcam. Well, two,” Jeff explains.

“Thanks?” Kent sounds like he’s trying to be appreciative while simultaneously trying to figure out whether to be creeped out.

Jeff rolls his eyes. “It’s so you can check up on Kit when you’re gone. You can put one in the living room, and the other in the bedroom, I guess? Or wherever. Then you just sign up for a streaming service, there’s tons of them online, and most of them have apps so you can check the camera feeds on your phone. You can pull it up any time and see what Kit’s doing, make sure she’s okay. Since… you know. You’ve been really worried about her, even though she’s all better.”

Kent is staring at the webcams.

“Oh!” Jeff reaches for the bag and rummages around. “Here’s, um, a VISA giftcard. It’s just thirty bucks, but it should be enough for your first month of whatever streaming service you sign up for. Unless you don’t want it, and then it’s good for whatever.” He’s feeling even more stupid the longer Kent stays silent. “There’s a gift receipt, too, you can take the cameras back—”

“No. No, I—it’s great.” Kent rubs his eyes and sniffs and looks up, grinning. “I love it. Thank you.”

Jeff’s face feels hot. He’s probably blushing. “You’re welcome.”

“Shit, this is so thoughtful,” Kent continues, getting to his feet. “My gift sucks in comparison.”

“I’m sure it’s fine.” _I’d love it if you gave me an empty shoe box,_ Jeff thinks, as he watches Kent go into his room and search through his closet.

“Any time this year, Parse,”

“Shut the hell up or you’re getting coal.”

Jeff snorts a laugh. Kent comes back with a giftwrapped box the size of a small dog. It’s heavier than a dog, though. Jeff sits in the nearby armchair—thankfully empty of Parse’s debris—and unwraps the box.

It’s hockey skates. In solid black. He should have known.

Kent is running a hand through his hair. “Hardly original, I know. But they were on sale, and like—you’ve just been using those old ones Posy gave you, and I thought…”

“They’re _awesome_ ,” Jeff says, meaning it with every fiber. Then, because he figures he won’t have many other socially acceptable situations for this outside a celly, he stands up and says, “Get over here so I can hug you.”

Kent is warm and solid and gives excellent hugs. Jeff kind of wants to hold onto him forever. But he lets go after a good five seconds, because any longer and he’s going to be tempted to smell Kent’s body wash right off his bare neck.

“Merry Christmas,” Kent says when they’ve let go.

“Merry Christmas, Parse.” Jeff picks up the box. “I’ll get out of your hair, now. Sorry for coming over unannounced.”

“Nah, it’s fine. You wanna stick around, get pizza?”

Jeff would love nothing more. “I really gotta pack, get ready for tomorrow.”

“Sure.” Kent sees him to the door. “We’ll do something when we’re both back in town, yeah?”

“Definitely.” Jeff dawdles on the threshold. “Have a safe flight.”

“Drive under the speed limit.”

“In Wyoming? Are you kidding?” But Jeff is grinning and nodding. “Send me pics of Buffalo.”

“Same to you, in Jackson. Do _not_ send pics of your awful holiday ham, though,” Kent adds, and shudders. “Seriously, what is wrong with your family?”

“Just for that, I’m going to…” Jeff grins. “ _Spam_ you with photos.”

Kent groans and shoves him out. “Leave.”

“See you, Parse.”

“Get lost, Jeff.”

Jeff smiles all the way back to his apartment. It’s not even Christmas yet, much less New Years. Still, he’s got a good feeling about next year.

**Author's Note:**

> this has been in my WIP queue and I just wanted it out.  
> i'm still on [tumblr](http://punmasterkentparson.tumblr.com/).


End file.
